We’re heading into a solar minimum, the period of the least sunspot activity in our Sun’s roughly 11-year cycle. But despite that, in September this year the Sun erupted into massive activity.

From one single active sunspot region our home star belched out more than 30 solar flares, including the biggest one we’ve seen since 2005. And now we have new images of what that insane activity looked like from space.

Lucky for us, the NOAA, NASA, JAXA, the ESA and others had many eyes trained on the old treacle bun, tracking the active region AR 2673 as it moved across the surface of the Sun, facing towards Earth.

Different space-based observatories are set up to study the Sun at different wavelengths, to capture as much information about its activity as possible.

“With multiple views of solar activity, scientists can better track the evolution and propagation of solar eruptions, with the goal of improving our understanding of space weather,” wrote Lina Tran of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

“Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however – when intense enough – they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

This sequence from NASA and JAXA’s Hinode isn’t in visible light, but X-rays. It shows the X8.2 flare that erupted on 10 September, 2017:

JAXA/NASA/Hinode/SAO/MSU/Joy Ng

This series from NASA’s Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory shows two coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, the first from 9 September, and the second from 10 September, associated with the X8.2 flare and travelling at speeds as high as 11.2 million kph (7 million mph). It’s one of the fastest ever recorded.

NASA/GSFC/STEREO/Joy Ng

CMEs are distinct from flares, and are made up of the magnetised particles that the sun hurls into space. They are very hot, and can best be imaged with a coronagraph, which has a metal disc, called an occulting disc, that blocks out the light from the sun.